Congratulations and welcome to the 697 outstanding members of Barnard’s Class of 2024!
This year, Barnard once again received an increased number of applications — 9,411, up from 9,320 last year — and selected 13% of these exceptional students. Of the 1,220 young women admitted this year, 57% chose to enroll. The community will welcome about six dozen students who will follow 26 mothers, 18 cousins, 17 grandmothers, 16 sisters, 13 aunts, and three great-grandmothers to become Barnard students.
Barnard’s newest additions are arriving from all over the world, with 11% of students representing 27 different countries — Brazil, India, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey among them — and 42 U.S. states, as well as Washington, D.C. Like the record-breaking diversity of the Class of 2023, this one boasts incredible heterogeneity (with 46% of students identifying as people of color), supporting a vibrant culture within the College’s expanding community.
Students from eight new countries, near and far, are joining Barnard’s community: The Bahamas, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Mongolia, Mozambique, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela.
Ten supported athletes will become members of the Barnard-Columbia athletic consortium, alongside standout athletes in sports without collegiate teams, including fencer Mina Yamanaka and figure skater Amy Liu.
The Class of 2024 bring with them a wide variety of skills:
- Aria Narang, the CEO of her own music company, placed in the top 500 of 300,000 American Idol contestants.
- Maria Shaughnessy is the principal harpist of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra.
- Hailing from Brazil, Amanda Arruda is a historical coin collector with over 150 coins, some dating as far back as ancient Greece.
- Liliana Seoror saves lives as a licensed EMT in New Jersey.
Some members are arriving ready to jump into the STEM offerings at Barnard, where 34% of the Class of 2019 graduated with science and math majors, compared with 21% nationally.
- Experienced coder Mahati Shastry co-founded Aan Systems.
- Anahita Subramanya is a four-time Science Olympiad team captain who created a robotics team at her school.
- Mariam Kamerji established a nonprofit called The Theory of Everything to bring STEM to underprivileged children.
- Rosie Pipada founded 20/20 Vision for All, which provides glasses and vision care for students in need.
Leadership begins well before students join Barnard, and so many incoming students have already changed the world for the better, whether that’s assisting asylum seekers or proposing urban development plans to their local city councils.
- As the youth director for the National Iranian American Council, New York’s Sarina Fard led pro-peace Iran meetings with U.S. senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and lobbied against the Anti-Muslim Bill.
- Kiara Skalnes founded a nonprofit in Oregon to assist asylum seekers.
- As a high school senior, Audrey McNeal made Georgian history as the youngest person from her district to become a delegate for the Democratic National Convention.
- Renata Happle successfully proposed a new urban development plan to St. Petersburg’s city council in Florida.
“Barnard is so excited to welcome the talented and driven group of scholars who will make up the Class of 2024,” said Vice President for Enrollment and Communications Jennifer Fondiller ’88. “These are challenging times, but like Barnard, these students are ambitious and resilient. Nothing stopped them from finding and applying to Barnard, finishing high school, and beginning their college chapters this fall. We look forward to being a part of their journey, and celebrating their great achievements while at Barnard and beyond.”
To the Class of 2024: Welcome to Barnard!